Ice Fall
by Usher
Summary: A training mission takes a slight turn for the worse when someone takes an icy spill. Will he get to keep his tootsies? - Reposted as it wasn't appearing.


**I wrote this pretty quickly to keep me amused while I was watching TV - it was written in less than an hour, so please forgive any mistakes. Its just a bit of fun, so I hope you enjoy. AN- Reposted as it wasn't appearing for some reason.**

"John, my feet are getting cold."

"I'll get Kyrano to turn on the electric blanket, Al."

Alan smiled and shook his head, letting it drift back onto the soft white cushion it was lying on. "Thanks, John. Will you get him to put a hot water bottle in my bed too?"

Above in Thunderbird 5, John nodded and checked the displays in front of him. "Of course, Sprout. I'll get him to put in two."

Alan sighed, watching his breath frost in the air above his head and closed his eyes, gritting his teeth as the cold leeched through the layers of his uniform, down through his flesh until it bit into the very marrow of his bones. "Any estimate on how much longer?"

John listened to the quiet chatter coming from the radio and checked the weather report again. "About five more minutes, Alan. Won't be long now." He tried to assure him, frowning as the display showed the thermometer dropping yet again.

"Good."

The radio fell silent for a few minutes and John felt his heart quicken. "Alan, you still with me bro? Come on, speak up…Alan?"

"I'm here, Johnnie. I'm here." Alan drew in a deep breath and let it out in a long drawn out sigh. "Not going to get very far now, am I?"

John's mouth quirked up into a wry lopsided grin and he shook his head. "No, you aren't. How's your toes?"

Alan lifted his head to look at the wall of white that obscured the lower half of his torso and legs and let it flop back onto the snow. "No idea. Can't really feel them any more. It's too damned cold. Get Kyrano to turn on the hot tub too. I think I'd like to have a soak before I head to bed tonight."

"How about some hot chocolate with that?" Scott butted in, having been listening to the radio chatter between his two brothers. Beside him, Gordon put down his pick for a minute, rotating his shoulder before he picked it up again and began to attack the wall of ice in front of him.

"Do I get marshmallows?" Alan asked stubbornly. "Because if there's no marshmallows, I won't drink it."

"Anything you want, Al. Anything you want." Scott assured him quickly. "We're nearly at the cavern now. How the hell did you manage to fall so far?"

Alan looked around the light blue ice-cavern and shrugged. "No idea. Abso-frigging-lutely no idea. Last thing I remember was the ice shifting underneath my feet and I went down. Waaay down."

"Got that right." Gordon muttered beneath his breath. He and Scott were talking on one radio frequency, and John was making damned sure that Alan couldn't hear a word they were saying. Unless they specifically pressed the button on their radios, Alan couldn't hear them.

"Gordon." Scott muttered disapprovingly as he continued to hack at the ice that sat between him and his brother.

"I know, Scott. I know." Gordon soothed him, jumping back as a chunk of unstable ice fell to his feet. They both froze and stared at the ice-ceiling above them, waiting to hear or see any ominous creaking that would signal a dangerous collapse. After a heart-stopping minute, they continued their painstakingly slow rescue.

"Training mission my ass. This was su-supposed to be a s-simple hike th-through the ice." Alan grumbled, and John massaged his temple, wishing as always that he was down there helping instead of being stuck amongst the stars.

"Honestly, Alan, the ice should have been stable. I'm sorry." He apologised, checking the temperature again. "I should have checked what the temperature had been the past couple of weeks, instead of just last week. I should have known it would have been-"

"Stop right there, John." Alan snapped, holding up his finger even though he knew his brother couldn't see him. "Stop it. I should have checked the ice was stable before I stepped on it. End of story. As dad says, you can't plan for everything, and sometimes things just happen. This is one of those times. So stop stewing about it, ok? John, answer me. OK?"

"Right Al." John replied finally, in an unconvincing tone. Alan narrowed his eyes, and shuddered as a violent shiver tore through him.

"S-say it like y-you mean it." Alan retorted, his teeth chattering.

"We're through!" Gordon called out suddenly as his pick disappeared into the air in front of him. Together, he and Scott punched their way through the rest of the ice and crawled into the large cavern, quickly spotting the dark blue of Alan's uniform in a corner of the crevace. "Hey sprout, bet you're glad to see us!"

Alan's teeth were chattering loudly and he glared at Gordon when his face appeared above his. "A-a-are you j-ju-just trying to p-p-piss me offffff, or are y-y-you j-just b-being y-your natural s-self."

"A bit of both." Gordon winked, and looked up at Scott, his demeanour turning serious as the professional in him took over as he tucked a thermal blanket around Alan's shoulders. "Scott, how are we doing?"

Scott had been busy checking the ice covering Alan and he hefted his pick in his hand. "We have to do this the old fashioned way, Gordon. And hurry."

Gordon nodded and patted Alan's helmet with his gloved hand before beginning to carefully chip away at the ice.

"So, Al, do you want to tell me why we can't use the heated remover?" Scott asked him as he continued to work.

"Cripes, Scott, I'm t-turning into a p-popsicle here and you want to make this into a t-training issue?" Alan muttered, rolling his eyes. At Scott's quick dark glance, he grinned and quickly shook his head. "Fine, we c-can't use the heated removers in this particular rescue because the ice is too unstable. The h-heated water might disturb t-the ice beneath the victim – ie me, and I might fall into a cavern that could, t-theoretically exist beneath this one. The heated air could rise and disturb the already unstable ice above me and bury the three of us beneath tons of ice. Moral of the story, bad things happen…"

Gordon grinned beneath his visor and began to work harder, sending ice-chips flying around him.

"Alan, can you feel this?" Scott squeezed Alan's thigh hard, and pursed his lips when Alan answered no.

"Can you guys hurry? I'm starting to get really, really sleepy." Alan yawned, his eyes fluttering as he fought to keep them open.

"Doing our best, Alan." Scott muttered and used the spike at the end of his ice-axe to chip carefully away at the frozen mass surrounding his brothers legs. After another few minutes, they succeeded in freeing his legs and quickly slid him out onto the stretcher they had towed behind them. More thermal blankets were quickly packed around him, and after quickly warning him not to fall asleep, Gordon tied the stretcher to Scott and followed behind, pushing hard to get the now heavily loaded piece of fibreglass over the rough terrain, back to the ropes.

"John, patch me through to Virgil." Scott commanded once they had hoisted the stretcher back out onto the frozen terrain, and after a few seconds, the sweet voice of Virgil sounded through the radio, demanding to know how they were doing.

"We're almost at the landing site." Scott advised him quickly, "Have everything ready. We haven't had a chance to do a proper once-over. Need to get him warmed up first."

"FAB. TB2 ready and waiting."

Virgil looked around the fully stocked but small medical bay in the large green vehicle, checking the heated med-bed for the third time to make sure it was warm but not too warm before running back to the controls. When he heard his brothers boots thumping up the ramp into the pod, he quickly retracted it up into the belly of the big green vehicle and rushed back to the med-bay, just in time to see them slide a now unconscious Alan onto the bed.

"Help me take everything off him." Virgil commanded, grabbing the scissors he had laid out and beginning to cut off the uniform.

Above in Thunderbird 5, John listened intently to the chatter as they began to strip Alan down to his skivvies and place warm water filled blankets on top of him. "How's his feet doing? Any signs of frostbite?"

Gordon grinned at the voice in his ear and sniggered. "They aren't black, so it looks good Johnnie. Give us a chance to look him over, ok?"

Gordon left Scott and Virgil to making sure Alan was ok, and disappeared up into the cockpit, activating the engines and guiding the behemoth up into the air. It only took twenty minutes to get from Antarctica back to the base, and Virgil grimaced as Gordon brought Thunderbird 2 in a lot harder than he would.

"Concentrate on Alan now, strangle Gordon later." Scott advised him, kicking the stops off the wheels on the med-bad. Kyrano was waiting in the hanger bay with more heated blankets and he and Virgil quickly packed them around Alan as Scott pushed the med bed towards the med-bay.

A few minutes later, Scott and Gordon found themselves staring at a door that had just been slammed in their faces. "I'll call John, you call Dad and let him know what's happening." Scott ordered, only to have Gordon shake his head brusquely.

"Oh, no. No way José " he protested, holding up his hands. "You are the 'senior' Thunderbird in attendance, Mr. Mission Leader. _You_ call dad. I'll update John."

Scott hung his head and sighed. "Fine. Stay here, let me know if there's any change."

Grumbling beneath his breath, he climbed out of his uniform and put on a t-shirt and shorts before trudging upstairs to his fathers office.

XXXxxxXXX

Things moved quickly from there. Jeff was told of the 'accident' that happened while the four of them were 'skiing', Alan's temperature returned to normal and once he had stabilised, was quickly flown to the nearest hospital, still thankfully unconscious. X-rays proved Virgil's prognosis of two broken legs as correct and he was quickly whisked into surgery and both legs were pinned and placed in casts. A more in-depth examination by the doctors provided the welcome news that the fall hadn't been more serious than that, and the explanation of Alan slipping while rock-climbing and pulling a tree on top of him was told and accepted.

By the time Alan was brought from the theatre back to the land of sterile smells and dubious food, their father had finally returned from Auckland, and the four of them stood at the end of Alan's bed waiting for him to wake up.

"Y'know, his first time out on the ice was a lot better than John's." Gordon mused quietly, gesturing to the casted legs.

The others turned to stare at him, uncertain of what exactly he meant.

He grinned at their puzzled looks and gently uncovered Alan's feet, gesturing to the pink skin. "He got to keep both his baby toes!"


End file.
